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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391519">Baby, Just Say Yes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelesslords/pseuds/timelesslords'>timelesslords</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heroes of Olympus One Shots [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Engagement, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, I'm addicted to naming my fics after taylor swift lyrics sorry guys, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, Percy Jackson is Good Boyfriend, Percy Jackson is a Dork, Post-Canon, Post-The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), a discussion about marriage is had, college age percy and annabeth, there's some hesitation but it ends nicely</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:29:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelesslords/pseuds/timelesslords</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, then. Marry me.” </p><p>Annabeth waited a beat before rolling over to stare at him. His face was dead serious, but Annabeth still thought he might be messing with her.</p><p>“What?” she asked. It seemed the safest thing to say.</p><p>“Marry me.” he said, again, simply. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heroes of Olympus One Shots [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>202</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Baby, Just Say Yes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Annabeth never appreciated New Rome as much as she did on Sunday mornings.</p><p>They didn’t have class, homework could wait until later, there was no chance of a monster attack, and, best of all, Annabeth didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to slip out of the Poseidon cabin before anyone noticed she had spent the night. She and Percy could just lounge around together and be lazy for half the day, before one of them finally got up and made breakfast.</p><p>It was starting to get a little late, but Annabeth couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed. It was comfortable and Percy was there. Plus, they were deep into a discussion about the architecture of the city, which only made Annabeth happier and more unwilling to move.</p><p>There was one temple in particular that Annabeth had only seen photos of, but it looked incredible. It was Juno’s, which was unfortunate, because Annabeth would really love to sketch the ceilings for her design class. </p><p>“We should go see it,” Percy said, “It sounds amazing.”</p><p>“I wish,” Annabeth sighed, “But Juno loves to torture me. Nobody can go in unless they’re married.” </p><p>“Okay, then. Marry me.” </p><p>Annabeth waited a beat before rolling over to stare at him. His face was dead serious, but Annabeth still thought he might be messing with her.</p><p>“What?” she asked. It seemed the safest thing to say.</p><p>“Marry me.” he said, again, simply. </p><p>“Are you being serious?” </p><p>“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” </p><p>“Uhh, I don’t know,” Annabeth said sarcastically, starting to count out reasons on her fingers, “We’re barely 21, we’re not even done with college, we’ve barely even <em> lived </em> together—” </p><p>“We’ve known each other since we were 12, college is dumb, and we’ve made it two months living together and we’ve barely had any problems, so—” Percy said, folding each of Annabeth’s fingers down with each rebuttal.</p><p>“College is not dumb.” Annabeth countered. It was his weakest argument, but unfortunately it was also her lamest reason. </p><p>“Okay, fine, college isn’t dumb,” Percy said, waving his hand dismissively, “but waiting to get married because we’re still in college is dumb. It’s not like we haven’t experienced the real world or whatever, we’ve been doing that since we were kids.” </p><p>“Yeah, but that real world is different than like, being an adult, with a real job and a real apartment and bills and—” </p><p>“How could that be harder than fighting in two wars and literally crawling through hell?” Percy asked, only he was grinning now, because he knew he had her. She hit him with a pillow in retaliation, and he laughed.</p><p>“You’re impossible,” she said, trying to sound mad, but it wouldn’t quite come out angry.</p><p>“You just don’t like that I’m out-logicing you,” Percy said, a little smug.</p><p>“You are not <em> out-logicing </em> me,” Annabeth huffed. </p><p>“Okay, give me one good reason why we shouldn’t get married, then,” he said. That dead-serious look was back on his face. Annabeth would have preferred him to be smug. </p><p>“Well, first of all, you don’t have a ring. What kind of lame proposal is that?” Annabeth said, knowing she was just stalling for time. </p><p>“Who says I don’t have a ring?” Percy asked, straight-faced. The look on Annabeth’s face must have been extraordinarily panicked, because he sighed, looking defeated.</p><p>“I don’t actually have a ring ‘Beth. You can put off your heart attack.”</p><p>“Oh thank gods,” Annabeth sighed, covering her eyes with her hands. That really would have been too much too soon.</p><p>“But I can <em> get </em> you a ring, so that’s really a non-issue,” Percy continued, undeterred, “Next reason.” </p><p>“Everyone’ll think I’m pregnant,” Annabeth grumbled, hands still over her eyes. That made Percy laugh.</p><p>“They’ll just assume that we’re crazy for each other and also madly in love,” Percy said. </p><p>“And also that you knocked me up,” Annabeth added, moving her hands to her forehead and looking over at Percy. </p><p>“In which case it would be my fault, and we would share the embarrassment equally,” Percy said easily, grinning. </p><p>“That’s not even how it works,” Annabeth complained, “It would be way more embarrassing for me. Even though it's not true.” </p><p>“We can print ‘Annabeth is not pregnant’ on the wedding invitations,” Percy said, because it was his turn to make her laugh. </p><p>“Yeah, that’ll shut up the rumors,” Annabeth said, trying to ignore how the thought of wedding invitations made her stomach turn. </p><p>“Okay, I concede that pregnancy rumors are at least half-way a valid reason. But I’m going to need at least one more,” Percy said. </p><p>“At least?” Annabeth protested, “Is my potential humiliation not enough for you?” </p><p>“Mm. Not quite. I’m sharing at least 25% of the embarrassment, so it cancels out a bit.” </p><p>Annabeth wanted to argue that 25% was too high a percent, but he had chosen the number well. It was, to Annabeth’s calculations, fairly accurate. </p><p>“Why can’t we just wait?” Annabeth asked. She hadn’t meant for the words to come out as seriously as they did, but she saw Percy’s expression shift from joking to sincere anyways. </p><p>“If you want to wait, we can wait. Forget I brought it up” </p><p>She knew he meant it, and she was really tempted to take up his offer and forget about it. They had talked about marriage before, in an abstract way, and Annabeth hadn’t exactly been <em> opposed </em>, but he’d never asked straight up either. She had been clear that she wanted to be with him for the rest of their lives, but they’d never discussed a timeline for when they wanted to do things. </p><p>But it had slipped out so easily, and so sincerely. He really did want this. The least Annabeth could do was talk about it with him.</p><p>“But <em> you </em> don’t want to wait,” Annabeth said, rolling onto her side to face him more directly. Percy shrugged with one shoulder.</p><p>“I love you. I want to be with you forever. Why wait?”</p><p>“If you want to be with me forever, why do it at all?” Annabeth asked. Percy frowned, little lines appearing between his eyebrows. </p><p>“What do you mean?” </p><p>Annabeth hesitated, unsure how to put her feelings to words. Marriage had always given her a kind of weird feeling, nervous and a little repulsed. She was sure a psychologist would have a field day digging up why, but she didn’t really care to know. It was only the prospect of doing it with Percy specifically that made it tolerable to her at all.</p><p>“I love you,” she started, slowly, “And I want to be with you forever. But why do we have to put this weird stipulation on it? Why can’t we just be with each other?” </p><p>“We could. I’ll be with you however you want to be with me,” Percy said, reaching out, and brushing a stray curl behind her ear. Annabeth tried not to sink too much into his touch. She couldn’t afford to be distracted now.</p><p>“But you want to get married,” Annabeth protested. </p><p>“Yeah. I do.” </p><p>“Why?” </p><p>To Annabeth’s relief, he didn’t look at her like it was a weird question. It would have been fair, it was a weird question. But he could tell what she was asking, what she was <em> really </em> asking. </p><p>“I dunno, I can’t really explain it,” Percy admitted, “I guess I just want to make that promise to you, that I’ll always love you and always be there for you, sick or healthy and rich or poor, or whatever the words are.” </p><p>Annabeth couldn’t help but laugh a little at the end of his statement, and his own lips turned up in a smile.</p><p>“You’ve already promised me all that, though,” Annabeth said. </p><p>“Yeah, but this time it’s official. Something bigger than just you and me,” Percy said. </p><p>And maybe that was it; the wrinkle that wouldn’t let her just dive in and say yes and get married at 21 like every other lovesick young adult. Promises. Because a promise made was just a potential promise broken and the more official it became, whether in a prophecy and a knife or a ceremony in front of all their friends, the worse the fallout would be.</p><p>“What’s wrong with just promising it to ourselves?” Annabeth asked. </p><p>“Nothing at all.” </p><p>“But you really want this,” Annabeth sighed. </p><p>“Don’t say you’ll do it just because I want to do it,” Percy said. </p><p>“But you really want it?” Annabeth asked. Percy took a second to answer, biting his lower lip the way he did when he was really nervous. </p><p>“Yeah. I really want it,” he admitted. </p><p>Annabeth studied his face, every earnest line marking his expression, right up to the crinkles in the corners of his sea-green eyes. </p><p>She tried to imagine being married to him, <em> really </em> tried. Not just in an abstract sense, but what it would look like, what it would feel like. To her surprise, it didn’t seem that different from what they had now. Maybe even better, in some ways.</p><p>They were already so much more than boyfriend and girlfriend, they had been for a long while. Soulmates was a cheesy word, but she did honestly and truly believe Percy was hers. And while the thought of actually <em> getting </em> married was a little horrifying still, the thought of <em> being </em> married to him was a little exciting. Having people understand, at least a little bit, what they meant to each other made her feel warm inside.</p><p>And he wouldn’t break his promises to her. He was the only one who had kept every single one, and a stupid piece of paper at city hall wasn’t going to change that. </p><p>“Okay,” Annabeth sighed, finally. </p><p>“Okay?” he asked, a hopeful smile creeping onto his face. </p><p>“Okay, I’ll marry you, you dumb idiot,” she said, unable to keep a smile off her face either.</p><p>Before she could continue, he leaned over and kissed her. She could feel how happy he was through his lips, and it was supremely difficult to break away, but she knew she had to or she would get lost and her stipulations would slip out of her mind, never to be seen again.</p><p>“I have demands, though,” Annabeth said, finally pulling back. Percy laughed, loud and earnest.</p><p>“I would expect nothing less.” </p><p>“I don’t want a big wedding. Actually, I don’t want a wedding at all,” Annabeth said, trying to suppress the shudder that crept up on her at the thought.</p><p>“Easy. We can elope. Next,” Percy said. </p><p>“Really?” Annabeth asked. She had thought that might be a bigger deal to him, but he just shrugged. </p><p>“I want to be married to you, it doesn’t matter to me how we do it.” </p><p>“Even if I say I wanna go to Vegas and get it done with an Elvis impersonator?” Annabeth asked, only half joking. </p><p>“Can we really?” Percy asked, his eyes flashing with excitement.</p><p>“Maybe? If we— okay, no, I have more demands, put a pin in the Elvis thing.” </p><p>“I’ve pinned it,” Percy promised. </p><p>“Okay. I don’t want a stupid gaudy ring, it's not practical, and diamonds are unethical anyways,” Annabeth continued. Percy nodded. </p><p>“No diamonds, got it.” </p><p>“I want to keep my last name, or hyphenate or something. And if I do change it I want to wait until we’re done with school.” Annabeth said. She was a little nervous about this one, but it didn’t seem to bother Percy.</p><p>“We could both hyphenate,” Percy suggested, “Jackson-Chase has a nice ring to it.” </p><p>“Chase-Jackson sounds better, but we can deal with the details of that later,” Annabeth said, waving her hand. </p><p>“Okay, I’m putting a pin in hyphenation order. Next.”</p><p>“I don’t want to send announcements or anything. People can find out when they find out,” Annabeth said. </p><p>“Okay, but we have to at least call my mom and Paul,” Percy said. Honestly it was impressive he had gotten so far without even a small amendment to her asks. “And Piper is going to be really pissed if you keep it a secret from her.” </p><p>“We can call your parents,” Annabeth promised. </p><p>“And Piper?” Percy asked, raising an eyebrow. But the thought of telling her best friend besides Percy was getting less cringe-inducing by the minute. Annabeth actually felt herself getting excited about Piper’s potential reaction. She would absolutely freak out in the best way possible.</p><p>“She can be our witness. If you’re cool with that,” Annabeth said. Percy grinned. </p><p>“That sounds great.” </p><p>“Even if I ask her to make it as irreverent as possible?” Annabeth asked. </p><p>“We’re getting married in front of Elvis, I’m not sure how it gets more irreverent than that.” Percy said. </p><p>“We put a pin in Elvis,” Annabeth corrected, “But I’m positive Piper can somehow make it even more irreverent if she puts her mind to it.” </p><p>“Never thought I’d know an Aphrodite kid so willing to ruin a wedding,” Percy said fondly. Then an excited look flashed across his face.</p><p>“Plus, she won’t be able to stop herself from talking about it, and then we won’t have to tell anyone.” he added. He sounded so triumphant Annabeth had to laugh. </p><p>“You’re right, that’s perfect. So, when are we doing this?” </p><p>The smile on Percy’s face faltered slightly. </p><p>“Are you sure you want to do this? Because we really really don’t have to.” </p><p>Annabeth hesitated slightly. In truth the idea still scared her a little, even with Percy’s promises that they could do it in the most goofy, non-traditional way possible. But his insistence that he would stand by her with or without getting married was the thing convincing her. If she asked him to drop it now, he would, and he wouldn’t bring it up again, even though it was a big deal to him. </p><p>And really, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to Annabeth as long as they didn’t make it feel so official. Breaking a promise you made in front of an Elvis impersonator felt much less disastrous than breaking a promise you made at city hall. But it didn’t even matter, because Percy would never break that promise anyways, no matter where he made it. </p><p>“I want to be with you. And you want to be with me,” Annabeth said, “It’s a little weird for me, but if you want to do it, I’m down.”</p><p>“Okay. Cool,” Percy said, letting himself smile again. It was so radiant it just about chased away every last shred of lingering doubt Annabeth had. Not to mention the few added advantages to being married that had popped into her mind in the last few minutes. </p><p>“Plus, we’ll get a better tax refund,” Annabeth added, and Percy collapsed into laughter. </p><p>“I love you so much, I don’t even care that you’re marrying me for the tax benefits,” Percy said, rolling over and kissing her again. Annabeth let this one last longer, let herself sink into it.</p><p>“We’re getting married,” Annabeth said breathlessly, when they finally separated. </p><p>“We’re getting married,” Percy agreed, grinning. </p><p>So, maybe the institution of marriage was weird and a little sexist in origin and reminded Annabeth of old prophecies and old promises. But that was in the past. Percy was the future, <em> her </em> future, and wanted to have every single moment possible with him. </p><p>They were going to go to Vegas, and hire a random guy dressed as a 50s rockstar off the street and have Piper make the whole thing as ridiculous as possible. And then they were going to live the rest of their lives together, maybe as the Jackson-Chases, (or if she had her way the Chase-Jacksons), and she would finally have a word to describe Percy besides “boyfriend” which had been woefully inadequate for years.</p><p>Plus, her rebate next year was going to be <em> awesome</em>. </p><p>Annabeth grinned. Maybe marriage wasn’t so bad after all. </p><p>
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